Liz Buchanan BVSc MRCVS
Keymaster
Hello! I wonder what anyone would have to gain from doing that? Even thinking about the unlikely event of someone being malicious eg putting an unwarranted ID chip in, this can easily be done without cutting the hair (although some people do shave or clip a patch to make it more visible). Clinical reasons for shaving a cat would be for an incision site, injection or blood sample (neck over jugular vein, front paw), or to operate eg Spey (square on side) or do a skin scrape eg for Demodex in the event of patchy hair loss. Most of these would be shaved down to the skin, though.
Sometimes people might shave a patch to mark / identify a cat eg Someone not being sure whether there were two similar cats, and marking one of them out of curiosity.
Or perhaps the cat accidentally had some chewing gum or a plant caught up in their fur, and someone else cut it away.
Ringworm can sometimes present as shorter hair?
I'd love to know more about the story behind this unusual question.
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